Miszewski formerly worked in Microsoft's group that sells to governments. He quit Microsoft in December and a few weeks later took a job overseeing Salesforce sales to governments.

Microsoft immediately sued to prevent Miszewski from starting work under the terms of his non-compete agreement, and the judge granted Microsoft a restraining order.

In a filing with Washington Superior Court yesterday, Microsoft explained why it's so worried: Miszewski allegedly retained highly sensitive information about Microsoft's sales strategies to governments and its cloud-computing plans. Miszewski, in a statement to Business Insider, maintains that the files in question were on an automated backup drive, not a computer, and had never been accessed by him or provided to Salesforce. He said he failed to destroy the backups when he left Microsoft.

Microsoft is slowly but steadily trying to put the squeeze on Salesforce with its competing CRM Online service: in December, the company offered $200 to any company that would switch.

Update: After the parties reached a confidential settlement agreement, the case was officially dismissed on January 5, 2012.